dently
believed he was speaking the truth."

"No doubt he did think he was. I'm sure, in the same circumstances, I'd
think of anyone else just what he thinks of me."

"Then why do you do it, Fred?" urged she with ill-concealed eagerness.
"It isn't fair to the girl, is it?"

"No one but you and Tetlow knows I'm doing it."

"You're mistaken there, dear. Tetlow says a great many people down town
are talking about it--that they say you go almost every day to Jersey
City to see her. He accuses you of having ruined her reputation. He says
she is quite innocent. He blames the whole thing upon you."

Norman, standing with arms folded upon his broad chest, was gazing
thoughtfully into the fire.

"You don't mind my telling you these things?" she said anxiously. "Of
course, I know they are lies----"

"So everyone is talking about it," interrupted he, so absorbed that he
had not heard her.

"You don't realize how conspicuous you are."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it can't be helped."

"You can't afford to be mixed up in a scandal," she ventured, "or to
injure a poor little creature--I'm afraid you'll have to--to stop it."

"Stop it." His eyes gleamed with mirth and something else. "It isn't my
habit to heed gossip."

"But think of _her_, Fred!"

He smiled ironically. "What a generous, thoughtful dear you are!" said
he.

She blushed. "I'll admit I don't like it. I'm not jealous--but I wish
you weren't doing it."

"So do I!" he exclaimed, with sudden energy that astonished and
disquieted her. "So do I! But since it can't be helped I shall go on."

Never had she respected him so profoundly. For the first time she had
measured strength with him and had been beaten and routed. She fancied
herself enormously proud; for she labored under the common delusion
which mistakes for pride the silly vanity of class, or birth, or wealth,
or position. She had imagined she would never lower that cherished pride
of hers to any man. And she had lowered it into the dust. No wonder
women had loved him, she said to herself; couldn't he do with them, even
the haughtiest of them, precisely as he pleased? He had not tried to
calm, much less to end her jealousy; on the contrary, he had let it
flame as high as it would, had urged it higher. And she did not dare ask
him, even as a loving concession to her weakness, to give up an affair
upon which everybody was putting the natural worst possible
construction! On the contrary, she had